Off Road

2024 Baja 400: Trey Gibbs, Toby Price lead qualifying

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Credit: Trey Gibbs

Trey Gibbs is eager to be the next short course star to excel at desert racing, and he already seems to be comfortable in his new environment as he was the fastest Trophy Truck Spec during qualifying for the Baja 400 on Wednesday.

Driving the #232 TT Spec, he set a time that was over five seconds faster than Elijah Kiger. The entry is recorded under Chelsea Magness‘ name since Gibbs is using her regular number, but the truck is fully prepared by Gibbs’ team without her involvement. Mavrick Gaunt, who added an unusually large rear fin-like wing to his truck to improve aerodynamics, was third; he does not plan to use the wing in the race itself.

While pre-running the truck days was the extent of Gibbs’ on-track SCORE International experience prior to qualifying, he looked like a natural.

“I knew I had to go down and throw down and went out and put it on the number one spot,” said Gibbs. “Pumped to be able to start in up front, but I got a lot of heavy hitters behind me starting for the race. All I got to do is go out there and run my pace and see where we wind up. Pumped on today, we had a good qualifying, made a couple bobbles here and there, but still able to put on a number one spot so looking forward to race day now.”

His SCORE début comes on the heels of winning Championship Off-Road’s Pro Lite title. Besides desert racing, his short course focus in 2025 will be on the higher Pro 2 category, which he entered for the first time at the Crandon World Cup earlier in September.

On the Trophy Truck side, Toby Price continued to show Team Australia‘s rapid pace as he cleared Christopher Polvoorde by 4.9 seconds. He and Paul Weel have now been the fastest qualifier at four of their last five starts, including a clean sweep of 2023 and topping the Baja 500 en route to finally scoring their first SCORE win.

Bryce Menzies qualified third, narrowly losing to Polvoorde, while. Luke McMillin was fifth in his new Gen-4 four-wheel-drive Mason Motorsports Raptor TT. Alan Ampudia, the only other driver to lead TT qualifying in 2024 when he did so at San Felipe before winning the 250, is sandwiched between Menzies and McMillin.

Gus Vildósola was once again the top TT Legends truck, having topped the class at all three SCORE races to date.

The Baja 400 will commence on Saturday, 14 September, with the bikes going first at 5 AM while the Four-Wheelers do so at 10 AM.

Qualifying results

Trophy Truck

PositionNumberDriver of RecordTimeMargin
146Toby Price5:49.543Leader
294Christopher Polvoorde5:54.459+ 4.916
31Bryce Menzies5:54.870+ 5.327
410Alan Ampudia5:59.791+ 10.248
583Luke McMillin6:04.337+ 14.794
611Rob MacCachren6:07.436+ 17.893
716Cameron Steele6:09.672+ 20.129
858Tracy Graf6:11.246+ 21.703
989Mike Walser6:14.188+ 24.645
1021Tavo Vildósola6:15.379+ 25.836
1141Justin Lofton6:16.612+ 27.690
1263Ruben Torres6:33.362+ 43.819
1385Mikey Lawrence6:35.947+ 46.404
1433Roberto Romo Jr.6:36.498+ 46.955
1582Sam Baldi6:39.630+ 50.870
1678Tracy Poole6:43.470+ 53.927
1727Jonathan Brenthel6:47.528+ 57.985
1887Dallas Luttrell6:51.529+ 1:01.986
1970Kevin Thompson7:42.131+ 1:52.588

Trophy Truck Legends

PositionNumberDriver of RecordTimeMargin
11LGus Vildósola6:07.935Leader
219LTim Herbst6:44.443+ 36.508
385LClay Lawrence6:51.121+ 43.186
461LDavid Payne7:15.959+ 1:08.240

Trophy Truck Spec

PositionNumberDriver of RecordTimeMargin
1232Chelsea Magness*6:17.246Leader
2238Elijah Kiger6:22.403+ 5.157
3258Mavrick Gaunt6:26.315+ 9.690
4241Stephen Beal6:28.866+ 11.620
5219Thor Herbst6:29.005+ 11.759
6285Justin Davis6:29.339+ 12.930
7297Jorge Sampietro6:30.851+ 13.605
8282Brent Fox6:33.439+ 16.193
9263EJ Herbst6:34.432+ 17.186
10273Jordan Brenthel6:35.680+ 18.434
11236Michael Marsal6:36.368+ 19.122
12242Bryce Swaim6:36.916+ 19.670
13277Travis Williams6:38.001+ 20.755
14205Joe Delucie6:42.324+ 25.780
15245Ethan Hagle6:43.904+ 26.658
16203Mitch McNeil6:46.742+ 29.496
17207Mason Cullen6:46.765+ 29.519
18209Jose D. Ruvalcaba6:49.050+ 31.804
19294Vincent Muñoz6:53.017+ 35.771
20266David Zeigler6:56.363+ 50.117
21213Josh Beyer7:01.173+ 43.927
22299Charles Dorrance7:04.341+ 47.950
23228Ryan Hancock7:04.415+ 47.169
24290Isidro Ochoa Jr.7:40.879+ 1:23.633
* – Magness is DoR, but entry is driven and fielded by Gibbs
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Justin is not an off-road racer, but he writes about it for The Checkered Flag.
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